Sunday, October 19, 2014

The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan: Week 3

If you haven't read the book, or the whole series,
why not join in and read along with the rest of us? This week the links to the
other posts can be found at the bottom
of this post.

This week we read through to the end of Chapter 21.

1) We get a
little more quality time with Semirhage. Cadsuane seems to have come up with a
way to get under her skin. Do you think it will be enough to get answers from
Semirhage? Cadsuane believes it is important to keep Semirhage alive in order
to learn useful weaves from her. Do you agree with this logic? Or are you all
for killing her?

I was sure that Sorilea would simply fix the
Forsaken with her beady old eyes and we would see Semirhage soil herself, so I
was a little disappointed with this solution. It seems to work, which is a
massive improvement over everything else that they have tried, but I am not yet
convinced that it will allow them to extract information from her. We saw
Moghedien broken and thoroughly defeated, and yet she only gave away drips of
knowledge rather than spewing out everything that she knew. I expect Semirhage
to be much more tough to crack, so they could be trying to get anything useful
for a very, very long time.

There is some logic in trying to get information
from one of the Forsaken, but I am not at all sure that they truly appreciate
the risk of trying to hold Semirhage indefinitely. As we saw with Moghedien,
she will do everything in her considerable power to escape, and there are
allies that might decide to help her (Shaidar Haran springs to mind).
Personally I would balefire her as soon as possible, but that would be a whole
lot less fun than having her escape and then try to get revenge for her
humiliation.

2) Moridin
and Rand have a heart to heart. Rand seems to understand the two of them are
connected somehow. Do you think he will make use of this information? Upon
waking from this chat, Rand confesses to Min about Lews Therin. Will Min tell
others as she told others about Rand's time in the box? And would that be a
good or bad thing?

I doubt that Rand can use the connection for spying
purposes, because it would risk revealing his own actions to Moridin, which is
a shame. Other than preventing further injury until Moridin can work out how to
kill Rand without dying himself, there seems to be few advantages in this link.

I suspect that Min will end up telling some people,
most likely Cadsuane or her sister-wives. However, it is not made clear that
she believes that he actually has Lews Therin inside his head. Perhaps she
thinks that he is merely hearing voices and will, therefore, keep this
information to herself. The possible implications of her sharing her knowledge
will depend a great deal on what exactly she shares and with whom, so it is
difficult to make a prediction at this point.

3) Egwene
matches wits with three White Sisters (Ferane, Miyasi, & Tesan). And then
she is forced to match wits with Elaida in front of the Sitters. Will there be
harsh punishment for Egwene, beyond the beating Elaida gave her? How will the
Sitters react to this? Or will we still have to wait for the Seanchan to invade
before the Aes Sedai get their act together?

I seriously doubt that anyone, apart from Elaida,
will see Egwene as deserving punishment for this confrontation. It was very
clear from their reactions that the Sitters were horrified by Elaida’s attack
on a supposed novice. This is a clear violation of the Third Oath and can only
be excused by Elaida’s assertion that Egwene is a Darkfriend. Even so, she has
clearly lost any power she had to influence the Sitters: they are actively
speaking out in support of Egwene in the run up to the attack. The only thing
that will save Elaida from a public removal from office is the Hall’s desire to
avoid the disaster of removing a second Amyrlin in such a short space of time.

I suspect that the Hall will be unwilling to remove
Elaida, but her power is now truly broken. However, I suspect that the Seanchan
attack will provide the Sitters with the excuse that they need to replace the
Amyrlin, or she may even be killed or captured if we are exceptionally lucky.
Either way, I am sure that Egwene will prove very useful in the defense of the
Tower and be unanimously accepted as the true Amyrlin in the aftermath.

4) The rebel
Aes Sedai have word that the White Tower now has the art of Traveling. Do you
believe Elaida is aware of this weave? Or is it just a handful of Red Aes Sedai
testing it out? And what do you make of Lelaine's latest actions? What can
Siuan do from this point on in holding the Aes Sedai together?

I am pretty sure that if Elaida knew about the
weave then we would have heard about it by now: she would not have been able to
resist gloating to Egwene about her newfound knowledge. I am also not sure if
the Reds involved are actually Blacks because I am starting to lose track of
the multitude of Sisters that we have encountered. It is certainly bad news for
the rebels, but I suspect that the Seanchan will swoop in before anything
significant comes of this discovery.

I suspect that Lelaine is rather less talented at
manipulation than she believes. It certainly seems rather obvious that she is
trying to create panic as a way to seize control of the rebels, but she
obviously thinks that she is being terribly subtle. I suspect that many Sisters
will resent her clumsy attempts to gain power and will, therefore, act against
her out of pure spite. However, I imagine that all of this will become somewhat
irrelevant once the Seanchan attack occurs, so Siuan only needs to hold out a
little longer.

5) Tuon
holds court in Ebou Dar. Did you find her offer to Beslan fair? Now that she
has seen the heads of trollocs, creatures she believed to be of myth, do you
think she will be more open to listening to Randlanders?

It was pretty much what I would expect from a ruler
who makes use of existing monarchs to impose power upon a vast Empire. It is
the same methodology that has worked well throughout our history, and something
similar was implied with Tylin, so I was not surprised. However, I expected
Beslan to be somewhat less practical in accepting the inevitable simply because
he has always struck me as being rather immature.

I would hope that the Trolloc heads would have some
effect, but her decision to attack the White Tower suggests that Tuon still has
not understood how to deal with the locals on this side of the sea. Rand will
be more than a little cross once he hears the news.

6) Mat opens
by comparing women to goats. Did you find his behavior to be 'husbandly'? Was
his own ta'veren-ness working against him in keeping the Aes Sedai with him or
was it his own goat-like behavior?

Ah, yes: it is always nice to be compared to a
goat! :D

In many ways, Mat has been behaving quite like a
husband ever since he met Tuon. He has certainly been a lot less like his
roguish, old self and has kept away from barmaids and girls with dainty ankles
(as far as I can tell). I find this rather hilarious, but it is very pleasing
to see a character grow and change as he matures. I just wish that he was still
Tuon so that he could point out what a terrible mistake she is making by
attacking Tar Valon. Of course, the attack is needed to remove Elaida, but it
would be nice if it could be avoided.

I suspect that the Aes Sedai are determined to
stick to him like glue because of his newly acquired role as consort to the
Seanchan Empress. Mat’s ta’veren
quality will no doubt add to this impulse, but there are more than enough
reasons for them to hang about without it.

7) Perrin
returns to the dream-wolf world, promptly insults the wolves, and is tossed
out. Will he be able to conquer his own fears? And if he does, what will he do
with the wolves then? Faile has yet more secrets from Perrin. Do you find this
good or bad?

Yay, Hopper! I am so pleased to spend more time in
his company: who doesn’t love a happy, flying wolf?

I am sure that Perrin needs to accept his ‘inner
wolf’ and unify his character in the same that Mat has done with his multiple
memories, and Rand will do with Lews Therin. Unfortunately, Perrin will lead
the wolves into the Last Battle and many of them will die, which makes me very
sad even though it will be wonderfully epic to imagine.

Faile has good reasons to keep these secrets, and
not only because she is ashamed of how she acted towards Rolan. She is quite right
that Perrin will berate himself about killing an innocent man, so this is one
truth that she is correct to withhold from him. I was rather touched by their
little ceremony, and it was certainly the honorable thing to do. I am a little
less certain about Masema’s disappearance. She could say that one of her
followers found the Prophet’s body, which would remove Perrin’s worry that the
idiot is still out there to cause trouble whilst avoiding any suggestion of how
he died. On the whole I find it difficult to trust Faile because she often
behaves in an overly secretive way, which causes no end of mistrust and angst
for Perrin.

5 comments:

"Personally I would balefire her as soon as possible, but that would be a whole lot less fun than having her escape and then try to get revenge for her humiliation." Um...your idea of fun scares me, just a little.

True. The Tower's supposed embarrassment at removing a second Amyrlin in such a short amount of time will probably be the thing that will hold them back. Silly women.

While reading your answers, a thought occurred to me about the Reds using Traveling. Perhaps they are some of the Sisters bonded to the Asha'men? Hmmm... I wonder if we will ever know or if this will be one of those little mysteries that Jordan/Sanderson never solves for the reader.

Very true. What Aes Sedai could turn down the chance to witness history in the making - with a ta'veren and consort to a major invading force for them to study first hand?

I agree with your points about Semihrage, Moridin and Egwene. I think we all came to the conclusion that if Elaida had Traveling we would have seen it on Egwene's end. Yeah, gotta love Mat's comparisons. And I was super-excited to see Hopper again too. This part of Perrin's story is one of my favorites! :D My WoT Post